Blog Archive

Saddleback Blog

January 28, 2010

Kudo's to the Saddleback Snowmaking & Grooming Team!

Today was my day to take the photo of the day for this website. It was also an opportunity to get around the mountain to see how we were doing with the recovery from Monday's weather event. What I experienced was very impressive! The snowmaking & grooming teams have done an incredible job and the skiing was very good. Royal Coachman was a corduroy carpet including the steeps that are usually left to be natural. Lots of the natural snow trails such as lower Professor, lower Jane Craig and lower Peachy's Peril were also groomed. Green Weaver was very nice and Supervisor and Tight Line were in excellent shape as both headwalls were groomed with a consistent surface all the way to the… Read More >>

January 26, 2010

The Recovery Is On!

Despite almost two inches of rain and very high gusty warm winds, the mountain came through it all in fairly good shape. Back when we were making snow, we made a decision not to "dust & run" with snowmaking, instead to stay put and lay it in deep. Fortunately, we did and the result is that we were able to come away with very good cover. You can see by today's photo that the coverage is there. Another thing that we did was not to get on the snow too soon with the groomers. We were patient and waited until 4:00 AM to begin any grooming efforts. This gave the snow time to drain and begin to set up with the colder temperatures. Grooming earlier would have created those awful "death… Read More >>

January 25, 2010

Good call for today

Yesterday's decision to not open today was the right call. Currently it is 40 degrees with heavy rain and gusty winds. There have also been some brief power outages. It would have been a miserable day to operate and upper lifts would have been on a wind hold.

We are going to shoot for operating tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Rain should change to snow and temperatures will drop below freezing later tonight. The groomers will try to get on the snow sometime after mid-night. They will focus on the major snowmaking trails in the South Branch area and major trails off of the Rangeley Double. Wednesday we will fire up snowmaking at the top of the Kennebago Quad and resurface Tight Line… Read More >>

January 24, 2010

A Tough Call For Monday

At 7:30 is morning, we met for our Sunday tradition of skiing with guests who are inclined to get to the lift an hour early to ski with management. The photo here is of today's group of about 30. It was a real cruising day as most trails had a nice corduroy finish. We skied Green Weaver, Royal Coachman and finished the program with a nice run down Red Devil. We finished making snow on Red Devil last week, so this was my first time there. The snow was excellent, the pitches were nice and it has a bit of double fall line which makes it a very fun trail to ski. When we began the session, skies were mostly cloudy and the forecast was for increasing clouds. Instead, skies cleared and we scored… Read More >>

January 23, 2010

Another Day In Paradise

Sunshine, blue sky, no wind and great snow! Just another day in paradise at Saddleback Maine. The grooming was very extensive overnight as most major trails were groomed. The winch also groomed the headwalls of both Supervisor and Tight Line. Today's photo depicts the day well. That shot is of Bouf riding the snowfields on top of Saddleback.

Executive Director of Ski Maine, Greg Sweetser paid a visit to Saddleback today. He took advantage of this fine weather to get some scenic photos for future use by Ski Maine and possibly Maine Tourism. We had a good discussion about the state of Maine's ski business. All indications are that business is solid and that Maine skiers are… Read More >>